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Make a big difference in the look and over all health of your plants by knowing “how to care” for the flowers in your garden. Use these simple tips to make your garden bloom with health.

Your flower garden must have an adequate supply of water, fertile soil, and sunlight. A lack in any of these basic needs will greatly affect the health of your flowers and plants. Remember during dry spells, they will need to be watered more frequently.

When planting bulbs, be sure they are planted at the correct depth. When planting perennials or shrubs, be sure not to place too much mulch or soil around the stem. Placing too much soil or mulch around the stem will prevent the water from sinking in. It will drain off instead and the stem could develop rot through overheating.

Know good bugs from bad bugs. Believe it or not most garden insects do more good than harm. Butterflies, beetles and bees are known pollinators. They fertilize plants through unintentional transfer of pollen from one plant to another. It’s interesting to note that, 80% of flowering plants rely on insects for survival. Sow bugs and dung beetles together with fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms are necessary to help in the decomposition of dead plant material, thus enriching the soil and making more nutrients available to growing plants. Insects such as lacewings and dragonflies are natural predators of those insects that do the real damage, like aphis.

An occasional application of liquid fertilizer when plants are flowering will keep them blooming longer.

Encourage more blossoms by deadheading. What is deadheading? Simply put, it’s snipping off the flower head after it wilts. This will make the plant produce more flowers. Just make sure that you don’t discard the deadhead in the garden or mildew and other plant diseases will attack your plants. We wouldn’t want that to happen.

Always prune any dead or damaged branches. Fuchsias are particularly prone to snapping when you brush against them. Take the broken branch, re-pot it and you’ll have a new plant, so don’t waste it. Let it keep growing you garden.